Salem was the one island Zevulun had never seen. As he stood on the southern tip of Crossing Isle where he could see the promising shape of the island looming in the distance, he hesitated moving into the surf. He’d promised his sons they’d return home to Tinuvel, even just to visit if not to stay, but thus far he’d delayed their trip. Though summer was the best season to see the northernmost island, that wasn’t the entire reason he wasn’t returning to his birth island just yet.
In truth, Zevulun was afraid to see it without his sister. What would the Bay look like without Mariael emerging, proud and head held-high? Would he only remember that angry, mean thing she had become the longer they stayed away and how she’d turned her back on all of them? Would it break his heart rather than fulfill him?
These were questions he didn’t quite have the strength to face the answers to just yet. So, he told Ramiel and Raziel they would wait until summer. Maybe they’d find Frey and see if he wanted to come, too. Maybe if Zevulun was with a group of them and not just by himself, the loss of what could have been wouldn’t strike his heart so hard. Maybe it’d be easier to set aside.
He sighed and refocused his attention on the island waiting in the distance. Salem. He’d always wondered about it. His sons told them of their trip there and how fascinating and strange it’d seemed. Well, Ramiel had told him that. Raziel had flicked his ears back and said the water tasted stale and wrong, nothing like the crisp snow-melt, moving rivers they were used to.
There was no time like the present to see it for himself. He didn’t want any island to be unknown to him and maybe, if he finished his young colthood dream to explore every island among the chain, he’d feel like he’d done something right to repair the years he lost away from here. That was a far stretch, but he charged into the surf anyways with new vigor and swam across the channel until Salem loomed larger and larger, then pulled him onto it’s vast, gold-sand shores.
The temperature change was felt instantaneously and Zevulun knew it’d take some getting used to. His aunt had suggested he travel there at night when the temperature was kinder and the sun didn’t bake so relentlessly down on the earth, but he’d wanted to see it in daylight. The further he walked the more intrigued he became, though there certainly wasn’t a lot to look at. It was fascinating how little there was. The world just stretched on for miles and miles, as far as he could see, without a bursting of trees or any sort of vegetation in sight. When there were plants they were strange, reminding him of how unique to the island Atlantis’s vegetation had been.
Eventually, though, the sun was getting to be a bit too much for him. Hanging high in the sky, it bore down relentlessly onto his pale coat and threatened to burn him. He needed to find shade soon, maybe some water, too. Zevulun looked around with a frown, wondering which way to go. It seemed very apparent that he could get easily lost. What if he took a wrong turn and just walked for more miles upon miles of endless sands?
Maybe someone would be able to hear him if he called for them.
Lifting his pink muzzle upwards, Zevulun bellowed out a whinny as loud as he could, hoping it’d carry far enough to catch someone who might help him.
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